Regardless, of the how the foundation moves forward, the potential benefits for Microsoft are numerous, given that many of the early projects will likely focus on the their product ecosystem, despite claims that the foundation will be platform agnostic. Ultimately, the possibility of delivering a better product to consumers was perhaps too good to pass up, in spite of the financial outlay. Think of it as money invested in R&D with greater leverage. Depending on the spin, this announcement can also go far in bolstering Microsoft’s standing in the eyes of the general public as well, the very same people that could be buying their software down the road.

Bill Hilf, general manager of Windows Server, explained the decision on his blog:

“The perspectives on OSS at Microsoft have evolved to the point where Microsoft’s open source strategy is no longer just locked in a single ‘lab’ on campus – now OSS is an important part of many product groups and strategies across the company. We have become increasingly clear on where we work with open source – development methodologies, projects, partners, products and communities – and where our products compete with commercial open source companies or platforms. Today, there are engineering and business leaders across the company, myself included, looking at how to drive interoperability for customers and as a lever for new growth.”

[image via schoschie]

Having an identifiable and vocal face of a company has been a very successful strategy for many companies – Richard Branson of Virgin and Jeff Bezos of Amazon readily come to mind – but it becomes problematic when the opinions of a business leader fail to match up with the perceived message and values of their companies and/or brands, as noted above. Now imagine that situation amplified throughout the entire culture of a company. Social media is doing just that.

As this shift towards openness takes place on both an individual and organizational level, aided by the emergence of social technologies, the feedback loop is getting shorter and shorter. This can be a boon to corporations looking to connect with consumers in an effort to build meaningful relationships and communities around their brands, but it can also backfire. While there’s little doubt that social tools are an effective means of communicating to and reaching out to customers, how much sharing is too much? After all, bad press arguably travels faster than the positive kind, particularly in a culture of almost real time.

While it’s easy to place the onus on our employees and consumers to know the difference between business and personal, these lines are blurring more and more every day so we need to be extremely mindful of how we approach these interactions. There may be no single answer that is applicable for all situations, but leading by example is good place to start.

[image via markus941]

This comes on the heels of a new agreement reached in the US between these providers and copyright holders (musicians and record labels) that ensures the continued existence of these services. As the Guardian reports “The new model offers different licences depending on the size of the company. Sites earning less than $1.25m in annual revenue will pay up to 14% of revenue in exchange for streaming rights. Larger companies, like Pandora, will pay either 25% of revenue or 0.08 cents per song. This per-song fee will rise to 0.14 cents in 2015. All licensed websites will pay a minimum annual fee of $25,000.

When taken together, these two announcements point to the need for innovation within the online industry both to capitalize on greater public interest while continuing to generate revenue through some combination of sales, subscription or advertising model. One such company that hopes to set itself apart is Clikthrough, an interactive video and analytics startup that recently secured $1 million in Series A funding.

Clikthrough’s technology provides users with the ability to click on anything that they see: “products, people, places and more. Once you click on a “hotspot” you will see information about the product to the right of the main video screen. Clikthrough lets you see how to purchase to an item; user comments, how to save it to a wish list, as well as live chat, rating and sharing features.”

While still short on content, the site has struck deals with Sony and Universal to license more videos from popular artists. The company has also added a customized iPhone site for mobile access along with analytics tools which track behavior and metrics. If they can continue to package dynamic content with a solid interface, this will be an interesting one to watch.